Some fun & Close...

 

I thought I'd have some fun on Sunday with my Lego Castle set.  I wanted to do more than just a few neat shots like the one below.

This is Clarence, he is one of the Castle Guards. 

After this shot, I thought it would be really fun to try a 'stop motion'. I did it the old fashioned way without an app to help. I guess there is an app you can install on your phone to do this and there is also and AI app called NaukNauk which will take a still video of a minifigure and make it into a short animated film.  It is slick as all get out. I feel like it is a cheap cheat, even though I've seen little videos that are pretty fun.

But it isn't true stop motion like I learned as a kid. I learned from the artists at my dad's office as they did animation. It was careful step by step drawing or using a photograph. I learned the old fashioned way.

I enjoyed this so much, it was quite a bit of fun.

In this castle there is a skeleton that has been locked in a cell. Obviously, the guards must have forgotten to feed him!

Looks like he is happy to have escaped!

After the last storm I had to go check for more downed trees. There was one. What a year for falling trees!

I of course had an idea for something fun to shoot while checking.

I used battery powered mini-lights and strung them out on a deer trail then placed my space people in the path and viola!

I didn't even think of a follow up to this shot...but I imagined the minifig in the orange saying to the other astronaut: See! I told you I saw strange lights!

I was just happy to quickly set things up and grab the shot and be on my way back home.

Though I did find these....

They were way passed their prime of course but I think they could have been some sort of Boletes. When they are fresh, they look rather beautiful.

There were more 'False Coral Mushrooms' popping up in one area of the forest that I had to backtrack through as the original ridge trail now has been blocked by fallen trees from the last few storms. No fence damage, but it is a pain to climb through or go around.

My Monday was a success. I called all the places I had to call and did all the boring things I had to do, then took some time to sit on the porch and watch the birds and think about the upcoming heat wave. This part of the summer is not my favorite.

By evening the air was breathless. However, I did still see lightening bugs! They must really love heat and humidity and ... still nights. I think my Grandmother used to describe weather like this as: Close.

Close: a weather condition when the relative humidity and the temperature are both the same. Often with no breeze where the air feels stagnant and heavy making it hard to breathe.

The A/C will get a work out for the next few days. It will be 'close'.

Finally. Christmas Tree Chair

 

Here it is as it is lit up and decorated. I have some ornaments on it. But really didn't put tons on it this year. I used up most of the red colored ornaments I had for some color. 

I also don't always hang my special ornaments, but use them on the chair seat like this:

I'll keep changing what is on the chair or around the chair almost daily. To keep the horses from falling over, I used the string of beads. This chair seat IS flat so they shouldn't fall over, but I liked adding color with beads and ribbons.

I finally got my North Pole Village out and as I arranged things, I started to 'play'. 

I mean, this time of the year gives me a great excuse for more play, right?

Our weather is unbelievable! We went from way below frozen to 50 F yesterday. It will last through the weekend through Monday. I still am contemplating doing a Charlie photo. You know, the one where I make the dog sit in front of the tree and pose. 

LOL. He hates it but will do it for cookies!

Enjoy.

Christmas Chair...slow work...

It's a tree, it's a chair. It's a Treed-Chair? The tree and the chair must become intertwined. I don't know why, but that is the way I think of it.

The chair seat is scratched and old but it provides a surface for magical things to happen 'under' the boughs of the tree.

At one time the little chair held gifts and envelopes [grands grow up and want $$ more than a gift]. I could be a real jerk and get everyone underwear and socks. But I don't. It is a thought though.

I mean come on. Wouldn't everyone in the family think I was more off my rocker than usual? At least no one would forget the year Grandma gave everyone weird underwear. 

Meanwhile, back to the Christmas Tree Chair. 

I really only do 1/2 of a tree, so the tree towards the window is flat and it saves more room. I don't go all the way down the tree either with the branches. 

I started doing the Christmas Tree Chair as a fluke in 2013. The tree at first was supposed to be behind the chair and hide the poor design of the tree that doesn't reach the ground like a real tree does.

This was before we remodeled the house. Dark walls, dark bricks, and ugly carpeting. 

The chair offered a nice way to change up decorations in a small space. The chair was rough and had a cool texture to it. It was beat up and cracked. Not really good for holding a human at all.

Over the years, I used the same chair until it actually fell apart.

The fun of decorating the chair morphed into including some of the wooden boxes I've collected over the years. In 2020 I got an old nesting box for chickens that my mother in law had purchased years ago and used as a coffee table.

This year tried something different yet again. A different chair and a different arrangement.

I start and stop often. Two days ago, I stopped here and let one of the handmade tiny button bears take over. I was tired.

It looks like the bears added a string of colored lights and a gnome has hopped onto the top of the tree.

The rest of the work is still unfinished. Most of what I do with the whole mess is change small scenes often in the boxes and on the chair for the fun of photography in the dead of winter.

Plus, it brightens up our living room with color and light in the evenings.

In the meantime. Charlie and I have been off exploring and looking for more ice formations. More about that very soon!

The Christmas Tree ... starts....

Sometimes you need a supervisor. In my case, the supervisor holds court from the middle of his couch with a chew bone.

I often ask his opinion on things and he just gives me a look and a slight wag of the tale. I take it to mean that he approves of the new 'Christmas Chair' that I purchased this past spring.

It always starts with a deep cleaning. The space I have to work with isn't large at all. I am not one to do things exactly the same way as I've done before so each year, I try a new approach.

This is living room to the south in the photo above....☝👆

and

...the living room to the north...in the photo below....👇

this is it...

now you see almost all of our house. 

The Hutch houses things like camera lenses and Lego builds along with minifigures. The old table is where I do much of my indoor photography.

The room in behind is our tiny bedroom. 

Of course this is what things look like when I have scattered stuff willy nilly...

and then I make a huge mess...

It is no secret that I like boxes. I have old shipping boxes, dynamite boxes and fruit crate boxes as my movable units for books and things I want to display. They all get emptied and rearranged for the month of December. [I actually constantly move them around and restack them the rest of the year.]

In the winter months sunlight comes in directly through the south facing windows so I use a printed shower curtain to diffuse the light. Odd, but it really works and when the curtains are drawn, there is a nice lit up scene to view.

This chair is ugly but it exactly why I love it. The challenge is to make it beautiful. I started this year with a pine cone garland that is bendy-twisty. I'll adorn the chair with it.

In years past, I've always used an old white lacey table cloth as a 'tree skirt'. This year I won't. I want to keep the warm feeling of the wood floor. The lights reflect a nice warm light when bounced off the floor.

I moved my little birch tree into the dining area of the kitchen and added some red battery operated lights. In the dark mornings, it creates a nice glow of color in our eating area.

As soon as deer hunting ends, I'll be out looking for golden rod stalks that have bumps in them along with milkweed pods and grasses to fill my vases with dried floral arrangements. This is something my Grandmother Pearl did in her tiny cottage so many years ago. I always loved her little arrangements.

In the summer I bring in flowers from the garden, in the winter I bring in sticks, grasses, and elements from the outdoors for bouquets. It works for me and gives me pleasure.

Hubby is used to this now after all of our years together. He refers to my bouquets as 'weeds'. 

I won't bore you with any more of my ramblings.

How do you decorate? Do things you use have fond memories? Do you have heirlooms? Real trees? Fake trees? No trees? 
Do you like white lights? Or are you multi colored?
Traditional? Not Traditional?

I decorate with a goal of visual creation in mind. It is more for myself than anyone else as we rarely have visitors here.

My supervisor is the one who takes more interest in what I do....

well....

Lights, lightbox, colors...

The weather did not cooperate at all for heading back out to explore along the Kickapoo River. I may have another chance this weekend.

It was supposed to start raining in the afternoon but it started as soon as I finished running errands and doing chores.

I thought I'd try working with the Light Box I'd received. It came with 5 colored back rounds and two pieces of cardboard squares. One set of black and the other set was white on one side and silver reflective on the other.

The light ring on the top of the box can't be moved, but came with a diffuser sheet. If this is all garble-de-gook to you, don't be alarmed. It was all new stuff for me too.

The colored sheets are plastic which is good and bad. The bend in the plastic reflects light sometimes in unwanted places. The light ring on top is white and it took a bit for me to figure out how to make it brighter and dimmer.

I even just turned off the light and used a colored light through the top to give me different effects.

I made a DIY light box before with blocks and  paper I taped to things.  I thought this would be useful and fun.

Here is my favorite Grumpy Dragon shot from the side with the lightbox on its side, light shining on the dragon from the left side. I used the green back drop. Funny how the green gave off different hues shot in this manner.

Then I decided to try the green dinosaur in the Lego flower garden.
Green backround with lighting from the top.

Same scene though I changed the lighting at the top to blue and boy was I surprised! It looked like it was taken in the middle of the night!

So I added the moon and stars.

And then I changed it to a bright red light [this was a tiny red balloon light!] that I set at the back of the box.

So light can dramatically change the over all look of everything inside the lightbox.

So I went to a black background. I adjusted the camera settings and thought it would be funny to have a Lego character interviewing a Hasboro character for a job.

Since I have two Mandalorians, I thought I'd do one more with blue/green light and a grey brick paper background I took from my craft paper supply.

The last experiment was with an yellow background and white light.  I used a Vintage Mode on the camera settings which was sort of fun.

It has possibilities, but I like the bright colors so much more.

I can't wait to use it for something much more useful, like macros of Lichen and other tiny things I can bring home and set up.

This last shot was made for a challenge in a Lego Flickr group.

A Gardener creates Love in her flower garden...

Well here we go!

Be glad I didn't start out with yesterday morning's musings. It was very Bah BAH Humbug. Really it was quite an eye opener.

Perhaps I'll write about it some other time.

We all think about Christmas Decorations right after Thanksgiving. After all, the decorations started to appear right after Halloween in the stores. The Christmas muuu--saccc started then too. 

[One of the reasons I do not listen to the run of the mill Christmas music is that it is heard everywhere in November and December, there is no escape! Your favorite Christmas music is???]

So I started with the simple things. I changed the shower curtain from the fall forest to the winter forest:

I like feeling like I am walking into a snowy scene when I walk past the bathroom door.

The Living Room -- 

and..now you have seen most of our house!

I brought in the rickety old table from the porch, I thought this might be a fun place to put Santa's Visit Lego build and the Gingerbread House along with the Wood Cabin we are still working on. The totes have all of the decorations in it. 

This corner used to be the corner where I put up the Christmas Chair. The concentrator was replaced with this monster of a thing. This corner has been rendered useless. 

That opening is our tiny downstairs bedroom that was part of the addition. The original house ends at that opening.

This wall that greets you when you walk in the back door. I made those wreaths so many years ago.  I save unique Christmas Ribbons and labels for packages. 

I purchased a pre lit 4 foot tall Birch Tree. I like it because I can use it all winter long to bring some nice light into our living room on these dark evenings.

The nesting box is exactly that, a nesting box for chickens that my mother in law had for years. She used it as a coffee table. I use it to put things in to look at.

I like old wooden boxes.
I like trees and sticks... and milk weed pods for bouquets.

In the winter the sun comes right in the south windows and shines in your eyes if you are sitting on the loveseat. So I tried curtains and they were horribly ugly. The blocked the sun and made the room so dark. 

[Note, that cabin heater is the heat for the whole house. It keeps it warm too.]

While browsing for a nice Fall Shower curtain I saw in a review how a woman used a beautiful forest scene as a backdrop in her bedroom. Someone else used it as a curtain for a sliding glass door.

So I did this.

It lets enough light in to keep the living room bright and cheery and is easy to open and shut. The orange in the corner is the basket of stuff I keep Charlie's stuff in for going out.

The Christmas Chair. Well. Hmmm. I am thinking about it, but of course am going to change it up as I always do.

As for the music? I like Trans Siberian Orchestra and instrumental music. 

Christmas Eve and Other Stories and the Christmas Attic. Favs...

Wayyy dislike any other versions of over played music. 

Framed..

Charlie...

he's been framed!

Christmas Chair framed by lights:

Oh....and he still didn't want to cooperate...

However, he did get his just rewards....

Sunday Stills~#31

Not sure

I had to spend the day inside and had done the 'house chores'. There was rain and sleet and icing going on outside.

I had so many things to do. Like stick around where I could get a call back from the VA. I dusted. How does so much dust accumulate on so few surfaces? It is a mystery. Dog hair. I got that too. Charlie is tiny but he is a mighty shedder. During the winter months we get a short break, I think he is hanging onto that fur coat so he can stay warm while snow swimming.

So I decided to try some Still Life Stuff. Truth be told, some of it was fun to set up but it didn't exactly make me go OHHHH or AHHH!

Eggxactly. 

Tiny Soldiers and Eggs

Totally Boring.

A flat presentation

of my new baby dragon

One interesting note. You don't need much to do a homemade still life.

I eventually said to heck with it. Though my words may have been stronger. Nothing was that interesting. 

I ascended into the Magical Room of Creations. Otherwise really known as the spare bedroom in which I toss crap and leave it laying about. Toys and totes are scattered all over the place. I clean it up once in a while but it is easier just to close the door and forget about it.

See?

I'd watched a video about being bored with outside photography and how to have some fun indoors and experiment with simple things like a desk lamp.

So I set up two crates and a board. I used a plastic tote lid to tape textured paper to and lit it up from behind. 

Glasses with water and 

drops of food coloring

Kind of cool. I had fun with it. Until I got bored. 
Then it became toy time.

Utter Failure of Dragons 

Backlit and out of focus

I had tried using a flashlight to 'creatively' light them up. Nah. Pfft. 

So I put some dinosaurs on the board. I draped the board and the backround with black felt. I took the desk light and laid it on the floor in front of the Dinos. Pretty gnarly!

Dinosaurs

Dragons

Well, that was cool. I like black backrounds. I can then literally create another world with photoshop brushes.

So last but not least, I took one of the 'Fairy' Houses I made last year and some shredded brown paper and did this.

The dragons are quite detailed. And I love their colors. By this time I'd had enough of messing around and left the spare room an absolute mess. I did get the call back from the VA on my cell phone. 

If I'd gone hiking into the creek I wouldn't have gotten a call. The valley is a dead zone.

So, hours wasted? I don't know. Probably not. I think I learned something and can set things up again on the next dreary rainy/sleety/nasty day.

Onwards.